A HISTORY OF CORNWALL 



sum, 1 thus removing them from the subjects 

 embraced by the Pipe Rolls and similar state 

 documents. From 1225 to 1300 Cornwall, 

 with its stannaries, was under the earls Richard 

 and Edmund, 2 whose ordinances and regulations, 

 if any, have completely disappeared. It is 

 necessary to emphasize this point, in view of 

 the statement so frequently seen in the older 

 histories of Cornwall, that the two earls gave the 

 tinners charters of privilege which in 1305 

 were merely confirmed by the king. 3 No evi- 

 dence exists to verify this assertion, and there is 

 almost positive proof of its falsity, to say nothing 

 of the fact that, possessing as we do the earlier 

 stannary documents, it is well-nigh incredible 

 that we should find no trace at all of a charter, 

 which, if issued, must have been of vast import- 

 ance ; the reason for the charter of 1305 be- 

 comes clear enough when we examine the peti- 

 tion of the Cornish tinners in 1304, namely 

 that they have their charter of liberties not con- 

 jointly with the men of Devon, 'juxta con- 

 firmationis Regis Henrici.' 4 This can refer 

 only to the confirmation in 1252 of John's 

 charter, 5 and the fact that the latter is here 

 referred to as the great charter of the tinners is 

 evidence that no grants of importance were made 

 in the intervening period. 



The administration of the stannaries probably 

 varied little all this while from the system 

 instituted in 1198. A few minor changes took 

 place in the fiscal bureaucracy, while the appoint- 

 ment of a warden was sometimes accompanied 

 by that of one or more ' clerk-wardens ' 6 who 

 in all likelihood performed the warden's work, 

 while he himself, often as well the farmer of 

 the stannaries, remained in London. 7 



The issue of the charter of 1305, at which 

 date the Cornish stannaries were partially separated 

 in administration from those of Devon, 8 marks an 

 important step in stannary government, not 

 merely because it contained new features, but 

 because, with one addition, it remained from 



1 Pat. I Hen. Ill, m. 5 ; 4 Hen. Ill, pt. i, m. I ; 

 5 Hen. Ill, m. 4, 6, 8 ; 8 Hen. Ill, m. 1 1 ; 19 Hen. 

 Ill, m. 1 6 ; 37 Hen. Ill, m. 1 8 ; Close, I Hen. Ill, 

 m. 23 ; 5 Hen. Ill, m. 8 ; 6 Hen. Ill, m. 3 ; 8 

 Hen. Ill, m. 14 ; 9 Hen. Ill, m. 4 ; IO Hen. Ill, 

 m. 27. Fine, 5 Hen. Ill, m. 7 ; 6 Hen. Ill, m. 2. 

 Cal. Orig. R. (Rec. Com.), 38 Hen. Ill, r. 3 ; 32 

 Edw. I, r. 7. 



1 Close, 9 Hen. Ill, m. 7, 9. Chart. R. 1 5 Hen. 

 Ill, m. 4. 



3 Carew, Surv. of Conw. (ed. 1811), 17. De la 

 Beche, Geology of Cornw. Devon and West Somers. 526. 



4 Parl. R. (Rec. Com.), i, 164. 



5 Chart. R. 36 Hen. Ill, m. 18. 



6 Chanc. R. 3 John, Cornw. Pipe R. 1 1 John, 

 Cornw. 



' Pat. 9 John, m. 1 6. 



8 Chart. R. 33 Edw. I, m. 40, 41. Duplicate 

 charters were issued to the two stannary counties, and 

 save for both being subject to the warden, they 

 remained separate from that day onward. 



that day till less than a century ago the consti- 

 tution of the tinners. To analyse it briefly, 

 it confirmed the customary rights of bounding, 

 freed the tinners from ordinary taxation, confirmed 

 the already existent practices of tin coinage and 

 pre-emption, and attempted rather unsuccessfully 

 to give precision to the jurisdiction of the warden 

 and his lieutenants. 



This charter almost completing as it does the 

 list of the tinners' privileges, a slight digression 

 may here be made to describe them more fully. 

 Bounding has been referred to as the basis of the 

 superior status of the free miner 9 ; but this 

 liberty was qualified by restrictions. A limita- 

 tion existed as to the kinds of lands which might 

 be invaded, and, secondly, the owner of the soil 

 was entitled to compensation. Cornish law, 

 after excluding highways, houses, and church- 

 yards from devastation, allowed any man to dig 

 for tin in all wastrel, 10 and in enclosed lands, if 

 the latter were of the duchy manors, or had 

 been anciently bounded and assured for wastrel. 11 

 Anywhere else the owner's consent was requisite. 

 The bounds were tracts of land enjoyed by 

 their possessors in respect to tin only, and the 

 ceremony of taking up a claim 12 was the digging 

 of a small pit, and the making of a small pile of 

 turf at each of the corners of the plot. 13 This 

 had to be repeated each year, else the bounds 

 were said to have lapsed. 14 The laws of the 

 stannaries contain no provision regulating the 

 amount of land which might be included in a 

 pair of bounds, and a possible outcome of this 

 omission is seen by the fact that in 1786 all 

 Dartmoor, comprising 5,000 acres, was taken by 

 a single bounder. 18 Nor has there ever been 

 any definition of the work necessary to hold the 

 bounds, with the possible exception of one which 

 made toll tin obligatory at the end of the third 

 year, 16 else the land reverted to its lord. The tak- 

 ing up of new bounds, as well as the renewing of 

 old ones, had, after 1495 at least, 17 to be reported 

 at the nearest stannary court, where, having 



9 The right of bounding was universal in all free 

 mining communities. Cf. Houghton, The Comfleat 

 Miner, pt. iii, art. I. 



10 Terris vastis et moris in the charter of 1305 is 

 obviously ' wastrel lands and moorlands.' 



11 Convoc. 1 2 Chas. I, c. 4. Cf. also Compleat 

 Mineral Laws ofDerb. pt. i, art. 12. 



12 In Derbyshire the prospector applied for his claim 

 to the barmaster, who delivered him two ' meers." 

 Compleat Mineral Laws ofDerb. pt. iii, art. i. 



13 Harl. MS. 6380, fol. 27. 



14 The law, however, still allowed the old occupant 

 to retain his shaft, provided it be not extended 

 laterally (Harl. MS. 6380, fol. 30). As the custom of 

 bounding survives largely in modern mining law, I 

 have set down only the more salient features. 



15 'The History of the Custom of Tin Bounding,' 

 by E. Smirke, English's Mining Almanack, i, 156. 



16 Harl. MS. 6380, fol. 30. 



17 Smirke, Vice v. Thomas, 101. Add. MS. 6713, 

 fol. 101104. 



526 



